Law, Power, and Justice

Sunday 9 July 2023

News Notes 12:00 Noon

Books:

Ben Terris (2023) The Big Break: The Weirdos, Wonks, and Wannabes Trying to Win in Washington While America Loses its Mind.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2023/07/06/psychedelic-drug-policy-washington/

Prigozhin

https://www.newsweek.com/vladimir-putin-yevgeny-prigozhin-wagner-group-mutiny-belarus-alexander-lukashenko-1811764

• Lukashenko “suggested Wagner forces had remained at their established bases rather than traveling to Belarus. Whether these are bases in Russia, Ukraine or both has not been revealed.”
• One Wagner commander said in an interview that members are still able to move about freely.  He said they were resting until early August when they would relocate to Belarus.
• Video posted online showed a disused based in Belarus intended for Wagner mercenaries.
• The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) did an assessment of the situation with Wagner and wrote that this freedom of movement went against “the public understanding that Wagner fighters should already be signing contracts with the Russian MoD (Ministry of Defense), going home to retirement, or moving to Belarus.”

Russia: Media

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/russia-state-media-1.6898524

• 7/7/23
• Nearly 65% of the Russian population gets news primarily from state TV
• A video of Putin holding flowers and squatting down to hug an eight-year-old has been played repeatedly on state TV.
• The little girl’s father was shown praising Putin.  “In my opinion,” he said “someone like you can probably not be replaced ever.”
• “Russia media watchers see it as a deliberate attempt to try to boost Putin’s image in the wake of last month’s rebellion, when a group of Wagner fighters, lead by Yevgeny Prigozhin, threatened to march on Moscow after railing against the country’s Defence Ministry.”
• The main narrative seems to be that Russia is united and stronger than ever before.
• Masha Borzunova is a Russian journalist who worked for the independent media outlet TV Rain until it was shut down.  She now has her own You Tube channel and produces a show about “fake news” and propaganda.
• Prigozhin once portrayed as a patriot is now cast as a traitor obsessed with wealth and power. 
• Repressive laws have forced many independent publications and broadcasters to pull out of Russia.
• According to Borzunova, propagandists in Russia were scared by the mutiny.  “They were confused.  They didn’t know what they needed to write about.”
• Vladimir Sollovyov is one of Russia’s most prolific voices.  He was recently sanctioned by Canada and other countries for spreading propaganda and disinformation.
• Borzunova said that before the mutiny, there were frequent advertisements for Wagner on Solovyov’s Telegram channel.
• Prigozhin was liked by mamy in state media.  Margarita Simonyan, editor in chief of RT was one of Prigozhin’s admirers. 
• RT had been banned from Canadian airwaves.
• Simonyan was absent the weekend of the mutiny.  She later said she wasn’t paying attention to what happened.
• On the day of the rebellion, there was little media coverage of it.  Channels played entertainment shows and didn’t show the footage of Wagner advancing towards the capitol until it was over.
• Borzunova (who left Russia in March 2022 and was labelled a foreign agent by the government) said that she learned from her sources that talking points were handed down to Russian politicians during the rebellion and told to speak about how the country was coming together and uniting behind Putin.
• “Borzunova said that the state media is trying to convince the public that Prigozhin was motivated by ambition and money, while at the same time trying to play up Putin’s popularity.”
• “Borzunova said it’s as if they were trying to hand-deliver Putin a bigger reception than the one Prigozhin and Wagner received.”
• The host of the Russian 60 minutes, Yevgeny Popov, a politician who was also sanctioned by Canada, was talking to CBC the day after the rebellion about Prigozhin being motivated by money and ambition.
• 60 minutes (state television) showed what it called an “investigative report” that showed the raids on Prigozhin’s office and his lavish estate, his personal helicopter and stashes of cash.
• There has been virtually no programming about how Wagner managed to get within 200 KM from the capital.
• BBC journalist Francis Scarr monitors media reports around the world including Russian state television.
• Presenter Olga Skabeyeva compared Putin’s popularity with that of a “rock star.”
• Scarr said that Russian TV was covering the riots in France as an example of how Western countries are in decline and Russia is on the right track.
• “They were coming out and saying … if you look at France, they’ve been battling to stop these riots for a week and they don’t have an answer to it … whereas ours was successfully put down in a matter of less than 48 hours.”
• (Note: Compare this to the way mass shootings are covered in the US.  It could have been worse had it not been for the effective response of law enforcement. )
• Scarr maintains that Russian state TV is not designed to inform people, but to “stir people’s emotions.”  (Note: Like Fox News).
• “Scarr said Russian TV frequently throws around threatening warnings about nuclear war almost as if it was a “game,” and can at times be so outlandish and absurd that it’s how he imagines North Korean television might be.”